taxa deposited each scat and multinomial modeling designed for mark–recapture data to investigate diets of sympatric red wolves and coyotes. Diets of red wolves and coyotes did not differ, but the proportion of small rodents in the composite scats of both canids was greater in the spring than in the summer. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.), and small rodents were the most common diet items in canid scats. The similarity of diet between red wolves and coyotes suggests that these 2 species may be affecting prey populations similarly.




 Coyotes in North Carolina can be Eastern Coyotes(mixed with Red/Eastern Wolf lineage)






Before European settlement, the ranges of the coyote (Canis latrans) and red wolf (Canis rufus) were largely allopatric; coyotes were limited primarily to the prairie regions of North America (Bekoff 1977), whereas red wolves occurred exclusively in eastern North America (Nowak 2002). The reintroduction and sustained management of red wolves in northeastern North Carolina following the recent expansion of coyotes into the eastern United States has created the unique circumstance of sympatric red wolf and coyote populations on the Albemarle Peninsula. Because the 2 species historically had mostly nonoverlapping ranges, little is known about their interspecific interactions or their combined effects on ecological communities.
In particular, the effects of predation on prey species by sympatric red wolves and coyotes are unknown. Clearly, in some situations canids have the ability to reduce prey populations (Seip 1995). A population of black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in Alaska was brought to near extinction by gray wolf (Canis lupus) predation (Klein 1995), and reintroduced gray wolves reduced ungulate abundance in Yellowstone National Park (Barber-Meyer et al. 2008). Canids also can have indirect effects on prey populations. For example,Crooks and Soulé (1999) suggested that the disappearance of coyotes in California resulted in increased numbers of mesopredators and a subsequent increase in predation upon native prey species by mesopredators

 Coyotes in North Carolina can also be Western Coyotes,
not mixed with Red/Eastern Wolf lineage







.Red wolves and coyotes are considered opportunistic carnivores, even though red wolf diets are relatively undocumented in the wild. In their historic range throughout the southeastern United States, the last remaining red wolves preyed upon raccoons (Procyon lotor), rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.), and hispid cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus—Riley and McBride 1972; Shaw 1975; Weller 1996) in coastal habitats of Texas and Louisiana. In the few diet studies of red wolves reintroduced to North Carolina, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) also contributed significantly to the diet (Dellinger et al. 2011a;Kelly 1994).
Following extirpation of wolves in the eastern United States, coyotes expanded their range eastward (Hill et al. 1987; Gompper 2002; Laliberte and Ripple 2004). Coyotes are smaller and are thought to eat fewer large prey items (e.g., white-tailed deer and raccoons) than red wolves. Coyotes have a diverse diet that includes small and medium-sized mammals, vegetation, dump refuse, white-tailed deer, and domestic livestock (Hilton 1978;Gompper 2002; Schrecengost et al. 2008). Except in Florida and South Carolina, where vegetation was most abundant in scats, mammalian prey (e.g., rabbits and small rodents) have occurred most frequently in analyses of coyote diets in the southeastern United States (Gipson 1974; Hall 1979;Wooding 1984; Lee 1986; Blanton and Hill 1989; Schrecengost et al. 2008). In addition, Schrecengost et al. (2008) reported white-tailed deer fawns to be the most common component of coyote diets during the period of deer parturition and fawn rearing in South Carolina, and coyotes have apparently replaced gray wolves as an important predator of white-tailed deer in the northeastern United States (Gompper 2002; Kays et al. 2010). Thus, empirical evidence suggests that the diets of coyotes and red wolves may overlap and that coyotes may have filled a niche similar to that historically occupied by red wolves across the eastern and southern United States.
The sympatry of red wolves and coyotes in eastern North Carolina provides a unique opportunity to compare food habits of these 2 canids directly. In allopatry, diet studies do not include the potential influence of interspecific competition and can be confounded by seasonal or habitat differences in prey availability (Andelt et al. 1987). Conversely, analysis of the diets of sympatric red wolves and coyotes within the same time frame and across the same landscapes reduces spatial and temporal variability and provides initial data on the potential combined effects of these predators on prey populations. We compared food habits of red wolves and coyotes using 2 recently developed methods: fecal DNA identification of canid taxa and multinomial analysis of food habits. We used a capture–mark–recapture model to test our hypothesis that diet would differ between red wolves and coyotes and diet, in general, would differ by biological seasons and calendar periods.

Discussion

Diets of red wolves and coyotes were similar as indicated by significant year-round overlap. Although there are no previous comparisons of diets of red wolves and coyotes, comparisons between gray wolf and coyote diets have shown varying degrees of overlap and resource partitioning (Meleshko 1986;Thurber et al. 1992). Similar diets between sympatric taxa may imply spatial or temporal separation between the 2 or a superabundance of prey (Johnson et al. 1996). Given the low human populations, large expanses of open space, and extensive cover of agricultural fields in our study area, high prey abundance was likely

.The change in diet of red wolves and coyotes between the spring and summer calendar periods likely was related to corresponding changes in prey availability. Seasonal variation in food items has been reported in canid food habit studies (Smith and Kennedy 1983; Gese et al. 1988). Litvaitis and Shaw (1980) noted that the highest trapping success of rodents and greatest frequency of rodents in coyote scats occurred during winter, and Harrison and Harrison (1984) documented a correlation between availability and amount of berries found in coyote scats. Further study of prey abundance and diet items across replicated seasons is needed, however, to determine if changes in canid diets in our study area can be attributed to seasonal prey availability.

The diet of coyotes in eastern North Carolina appears generally similar to coyote diets in other areas in the southeastern United States. One possible difference was our finding that insects and vegetation were relatively unimportant for coyotes, which contrasts with results of other studies in the region (Smith and Kennedy 1983; Blanton 1988; Stratman and Pelton 1997;Schrecengost et al. 2008). However, we suspect that our results may have underestimated insects and vegetation. We commonly detected orthopterans, primarily grasshoppers, in scats but these items rarely contributed >; 1% of the scat volume, and were thus excluded from our analysis. Additionally, we collected several scats composed entirely of orthopterans or persimmon and blackberry seeds, but lack of fecal material prevented collection of useable DNA samples and species identification was unsuccessful in these cases.

Several recent studies have suggested that coyotes may be suppressing white-tailed deer populations in the eastern United States through fawn, and possibly adult, mortality (Schrecengost et al. 2008; Kilgo et al. 2012). Our diet analyses showed that white-tailed deer was an important component of both red wolf and coyote diets year round. Although we did not differentiate adult deer from fawns, several scats contained small hooves, bones, and teeth of fawns. Coyote diet studies in other states suggested that deer carrion may make up a large proportion of the diet (Arjo and Pletscher 1999; Switalski 2003), but we were unable to determine the amount of deer consumed as carrion, nor were we able to determine the proportion of the diet containing fawns.

Species identification using fecal DNA ensured that scats used in our analyses were of target taxa (Farrell et al. 2000; Bohling and Waits 2011). Previous food habit studies of gray wolves and coyotes used scat size as a determinant of animal origin, excluding extremely large or small scats to avoid inclusion of feral dogs, foxes, and bobcats (Arjo et al. 2002; Carrera et al. 2008;Schrecengost et al. 2008). Despite the poor success rate of species identification in our study (26.5%), excluding noncanid scats from our analysis and positively identifying scats from red wolves and coyotes increased the accuracy of our findings

.Our results show that the diets of red wolves and coyotes do not differ significantly in eastern North Carolina where their ranges overlap. Although food resources during our study may have been abundant (with relatively little ecological pressure for resource partitioning), we speculate that red wolves and coyotes coexist in eastern North Carolina through mechanisms other than prey partitioning. Additionally, the diet similarity between the 2 taxa suggests that red wolves and coyotes affect prey populations similarly and may, at least partially, be fulfilling the historic niche that canids once had in the southeastern United States